“As noted in “British gun control: Coming soon to a country near you? ” seven countries, led by the United Kingdom, are attempting to revive U.N. efforts to restrict imports and exports of small arms. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the United States would reverse Bush administration opposition to international small arms control, potentially paving the way for the British-led effort, which calls for a vote by the U.N. General Assembly by year’s end.

The U.S. would support the “Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty” as long as it was conducted under rules of “consensus decision-making,” interpreted by some to require unanimous consent, Clinton said. Non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Oxfam, which support international restrictions, objected to requirements for a consensus.

The Heritage Foundation, calling demands for consensus “irrelevant” and “dangerous,” expressed opposition to the conference. The NRA has long opposed treaty efforts on grounds they would be used to abridge American’s right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”

“British authorities are apparently so satisfied with the results of stringent gun laws that they intend to use the United Nations to bring gun control to the United States.

According to “The State,” seven countries have begun a campaign to “regulate the global arms trade” and “prevent the illegal transfer of guns.” And leading the charge is John Duncan, Britain’s ambassador for multilateral arms control and disarmament, who described a recent month-long meeting of the UN General Assembly’s disarmament committee as “pivotal” in launching a new global treaty.

Despite previous U.S.-led resistance to international gun control, when U.S. ambassador John Bolton repudiated such efforts, Duncan and other supporters hope to have the U.N. General Assembly vote on a draft treaty later this year.

AMERICAN VERSUS BRITISH CRIME RATES:

Ironically, the same Britain now trying to export gun control has experienced an explosion in violent crime since virtually banning guns in 1997. In an article just three months old, the British MailOnline reports that England and Wales now have the highest violent crime in the European Union – a rate which, in fact exceeds that of the United States and even hyper-violent South Africa.

Says MailOnline:

“In the decade following [the election of the Labor Party] in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 percent to 1.158 million – more than two every minute.”

Indeed, the U.K. – a laboratory for the near-complete prohibition of private gun ownership – has a violent crime victimization rate of 2,034 per 100,000 residents.

Meanwhile, the U.S., with its far less restrictive gun laws, has a violence rate of only 466 crimes per 100,000 residents.

Even South Africa’s rate is lower, at 1,677 violent crimes per 100,000.

Downplaying the report, British Police Minister David Hanson cited differences in crime reporting to call the figures “misleading.”

Argentina: The Argentine Post, conducting a survey of households in 40 urban centers, reports fully 32.7% or respondents had a family member who had been victimized, and only one-third of such crimes had been reported.

Finland: With gun laws the BBC laments as “among the most liberal in the world,” Finland has a violent crime rate of only 738 per 100,000.

Japan: While violence is historically low in Japanese culture, suicide rates are invariably high, despite a near-complete ban on private gun ownership. Additionally, Japanese residents live in a virtual police state.

Australia: Another laboratory for gun control since restricting gun ownership following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, MailOnline reports a violent crime rate for Australia of 92 per 100,000 residents. This seems unlikely, however, since The Australia Institute of Criminology reports that assault alone occurs at a rate of 840 per 100,000 – a rate which increased dramatically since the Port Arthur ban. Other sources, including Austin Gun Rights Examiner Howard Nemerov, report either flat or increasing trend lines for violent crime since the ban.

SPEAKING OF AUSTRALIA …

And since the Australian government seems to want its restrictions brought to the U.S., perhaps we should glimpse what its subjects can expect in the future. “The Manly Daily,” of Australia, reported on October 9 that pursuant to the Australian Firearms Act of 1996:

“Northern Beaches Police will be turning up on the doorstep of every licensed gun owner in the area over the next four years to check their firearms are stored correctly.

“Operation Aston follows the gun amnesty that ended on May 31 and will target guns stored incorrectly and the security of gun safes, Northern Beaches Commander Doreen Cruickshank said.

“Gun owners have a responsibility to ensure their weapon is safely stored at all times when not in use,’ Supt Cruickshank said.

“Licensing police will be attending the home of every licensed firearm owner in the northern beaches over the next four years to inspect every weapon and check the gun safe.

“Officers will be examining all gun safes to ensure they comply with the legislative requirements, particularly in relation to the standard and security of safes.’” [Emphasis added]

ENOUGH SAID?”

U.S. Support for the Arms Trade Treaty!-Posted On U.S. Department of State Web Site-On October 14, 2009:

“Conventional arms transfers are a crucial national security concern for the United States, and we have always supported effective action to control the international transfer of arms.

The United States is prepared to work hard for a strong international standard in this area by seizing the opportunity presented by the Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty at the United Nations. As long as that Conference operates under the rule of consensus decision-making needed to ensure that all countries can be held to standards that will actually improve the global situation by denying arms to those who would abuse them, the United States will actively support the negotiations. Consensus is needed to ensure the widest possible support for the Treaty and to avoid loopholes in the Treaty that can be exploited by those wishing to export arms irresponsibly.

On a national basis, the United States has in place an extensive and rigorous system of controls that most agree is the “gold standard” of export controls for arms transfers. On a bilateral basis, the United States regularly engages other states to raise their standards and to prohibit the transfer or transshipment of capabilities to rogue states, terrorist groups, and groups seeking to unsettle regions. Multilaterally, we have consistently supported high international standards, and the Arms Trade Treaty initiative presents us with the opportunity to promote the same high standards for the entire international community that the United States and other responsible arms exporters already have in place to ensure that weaponry is transferred for legitimate purposes.

The United States is committed to actively pursuing a strong and robust treaty that contains the highest possible, legally binding standards for the international transfer of conventional weapons. We look forward to this negotiation as the continuation of the process that began in the UN with the 2008 UN Group of Governmental Experts on the ATT and continued with the 2009 UN Open-Ended Working Group on ATT.”

The Obama Administration Makes the Wrong Call on the U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty–Posted On The Heritage Foundation-By Ted R. Bromund-On October 15, 2009:

“On October 14, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the United States would seek a “strong international standard” in the control of the conventional arms trade by “seizing the opportunity presented by the Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty at the United Nations.” Her announcement contained an important caveat: The U.S. will actively support negotiations only if the conference “operates under the rule of consensus decision-making needed to ensure that all countries can be held to standards that will actually improve the global situation.”[1]This caveat has been attacked by NGOs supporting the treaty process.[2]

The Administration’s decision to participate on the basis of consensus is wrong. The U.S. cannot ensure that the conference will operate on such a basis, nor can consensus guarantee that the U.S.’s export controls–which the Administration rightly lauds as the world’s “gold standard”–will form the basis for an arms trade treaty. In practice, since most of the world’s states have low standards for the export of conventional arms, the U.S.’s demand for consensus will be used to pressure the U.S. to lower its own standards or expand the treaty in ways that would conflict with the U.S. Constitution.The behavior of the U.N.’s member states demonstrates that there is no basis for consensus in the negotiation of this treaty. The pursuit of consensus, as high-minded as it may sound, will therefore produce an ineffective treaty.

The Demand for Consensus Is Irrelevant:

The United States does not have the power to ensure that the negotiations on an arms trade treaty operate “under the rule of consensus decision-making.” The budget of the United Nations, for example, is traditionally adopted on the basis of consensus, yet in late 2007, the U.N.’s member states abandoned that tradition and approved a budget increase of 25 percent by a vote of 142-1.[3]The U.S. was the state that voted no. Nothing can prevent the arms trade treaty negotiations from similarly abandoning a consensus basis as soon as it suits the majority.

Nor can the U.S., as the Administration claims, use consensus-based negotiations to ensure that any arms trade treaty adopts the U.S.’s high standards for the control of the export of conventional arms. If the U.S. insists that such standards be verifiably adopted by all the world’s states, the negotiations will go nowhere, and the U.S. will find itself isolated and once again unfairly described as unilateralist. The NGOs that support the treaty will then urge the majority of states to conclude the negotiations without U.S. approval.

The Pursuit of Consensus Is Dangerous:

The Administration argues that consensus offers a guarantee that the negotiations will produce an effective treaty. In practice, since the U.S. has high standards, the U.S. is itself the state most likely to disrupt the consensus of the majority of states with low standards. Far from being a weapon for the U.S. to use against recalcitrant states with low standards, the demand for consensus will be turned against the U.S. and be used to exert pressure on America to lower its own standards so that a treaty can be concluded.

The U.S. will then be in the invidious position of either resisting the consensus that it demanded or accepting a treaty that breaks with settled U.S. policy, backed by Congress for many years, of strict export controls. This outcome is foreshadowed by the NGO attacks on the U.S. demand for consensus, which indicate that these organizations desire only that a treaty be completed, regardless of its quality. Toward that end, the NGOs will strenuously resist any U.S. efforts to follow the negotiating strategy laid out by Secretary Clinton.

The behavior of the U.N.’s member states demonstrates that the pursuit of consensus is a dangerous mirage. One justification frequently offered for the treaty is that it will end the transfer of arms to terrorists. Yet the U.N. has never been able to define terrorism, because states such as Pakistan argue–in their official submission on the treaty–that “the right of peoples … to [resist] the illegality of aggression [and] foreign occupation” means that what the U.S. describes as terrorism is justified.[4]

Achieving a genuine consensus in negotiations with states holding these views is close to impossible. Any consensus will come only by adopting a treaty that has low standards, weak enforcement provisions, or both. In practice, as the U.N. itself has acknowledged, the U.N.’s member states have achieved consensus on one demand: that any arms trade treaty must explicitly acknowledge their “right … to manufacture, import, export, transfer and retain conventional arms.”[5] No arms trade treaty can both acknowledge that all states–including those that support terrorism–have this right and simultaneously control the conventional arms trade.

The U.S. will also be pressured to adopt a treaty that will conflict with rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. In 2008, the Group of Governmental Experts correctly stated that an arms trade treaty would need to respect member states’ constitutional provisions, such as the Second Amendment. But the October 2008 U.N. resolution ignored this stipulation and instead stated that signatories of the treaty would have to have the “highest possible standards” to keep weapons away from all “criminal activity.” The “highest possible standards” requirement and the Second Amendment are incompatible, because there is ultimately no guarantee that any privately held gun in the U.S. will never be used in criminal activity.[6]

What the U.S. Should Do:

The U.S. should:

Support negotiations for an arms trade treaty that respect constitutional provisions,

Reject universal membership and multilateral enforcement on the grounds that not all states are serious in pursuing the treaty’s goals,

Refuse to concede an explicit “right to buy” to dictatorships and terrorist-supporting states, and

Adhere to President Reagan’s cautious approach to arms control agreements: “Trust, but verify.”[7]

Finally, no matter what entry into force provisions are adopted in the treaty negotiations, the treaty must not be binding on states that have not signed and ratified it. If not based on these principles, the arms trade treaty will fail to achieve its aims, damage the national interest of the United States, and subvert American sovereignty and the export control mechanisms established by Congress.

Ted R. Bromund, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.

Note: What follows is an eye-opening article and/or blog post and video that reveal that the U.S. is no longer working under Constitutional Law, along with an alarming article and/or blog post and PDF book by Mark Levin that reveal the undoing of America by central planning “masterminds” and controlling micro-managers who eventually take away our natural, God-given rights and force us into slavery, killing our ideas, our potential and our dreams-You Decide:

My Top 10 Reasons the USA is NO LONGER under Constitutional Law!-Posted on The Gaspee Gazette-On March 13, 2012:

Note:The following websites reveal that George Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) and groups that promote a variety of leftwing causes are strong advocates of gun control and fund the Arms Control Association (ACA), which outlines the UN Process on Small Arms, along with the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) that is global movement against gun violence, which has lobbied the United Nations to pass a measure outlawing private gun ownership and effectively overturning the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, along with the-You Decide:

NRA: 10 ways it has weakened gun-control laws in the US: ‘How the organisation behind Florida’s stand-your-ground law has been exploiting loopholes – and creating more – for years!’–Posted on The Guardian-By Ed Pilkington in New York-On April 13, 2012:

UN Ignores Its Own Data to Promote Gun Ban: ‘If the United Nations consulted their own research, they wouldn’t be promoting their global civilian disarmament agenda.’–Posted on Pajamas Media-By Howard Nemero-On April 2, 2011:

Democrats Want to Ban Lead Bullets, Shot, and Sinkers:Will the EPA infuriate gun owners—and seal the fate of Democrats on November 2?–Posted on The Weekly Standard-By JOHN MCCORMACK-On August 27, 2010:

[…] It seems that Great Britain, with their near ban of gun ownership by private citizens, has a violent crime victimization rate of 2,034 per 100,000 residents. While here, in the, oh, so violent USA, with our far less restrictive gun laws, we have a violence rate of only 466 crimes per 100,000 residents. Even South Africa’s rate is lower, at 1,677 violent crimes per 100,000. You can read an exceptional article on this subject HERE. […]

Post very nicely written, and it contains useful facts. I am happy to find your distinguished way of writing the post. Now you make it easy for me to understand and implement. Thanks for sharing with us.

Seeing that i have been exploring temporarly for a pleasant study with reference to this one topic . Researching in Yahoo I lastly came across this web site. Reading these details I am relieved to convey that I get a good uncanny feeling I came across precisely what I needed. I most certainly will make sure to remember this web-site and check it out consistently.

Gorgeous Stuff! My spouse and i had been only contemplating that there’s too much wrong important info on this theme and you also just simply updated our judgement. Appreciate your sharing a very effective piece of writing.

I appreciate this educational weblog. I’m searching for google with this type of info last but not least got a superior quality 1. This may assist with what I ‘m considering regarding my research for my school project.

I don’t usually post on blogs but had to on yours. You have a very easy to read writing style. I really enjoy posts about this topic, they give me a lot to reflect on. I don’t have time to read everything right now, I found this site when looking for something else on Yahoo, but I’ve bookmarked your homepage and will check back soon to see the latest thoughts.

I am just beginning in management media and starting to learn how to do it well – resources like this blog post are incredibly helpful. As our company is based in the US, is kind of new to us The reference mention is something that I worry about as well, how to show your own real enthusiasm and share to the community.

Hi, probably I am being some how off topic here, nonetheless I had been reading your site and it looks outstanding!. I’m creating a site and attempting to make it appear clean, however each time I touch it I screw something up. Did you build and style the website by yourself? Can a person with very little experience do it, as well as add updates without messing it up? well, great information on here, extremely helpful.

Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wished to say that I have truly enjoyed surfing around your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your rss feed and I hope you write again very soon! my website is about csx gateway. would like some feedback if possible

Unquestionably believe that which you stated. Your favorite reason seemed to be on the internet the easiest thing to be aware of. I say to you, I certainly get annoyed while people think about worries that they plainly do not know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and defined out the whole thing without having side-effects , people could take a signal. Will probably be back to get more. Thanks

I’ve been browsing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the net will be much more useful than ever before.

Hello, I don’t blame people for being worried but this has been fact-checked and it’s not a threat to internal US gun ownership (altho maybe harder to get some imports.) See for example fact-checking site http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/untreaty.asp. For example:
“The putative United Nations arms treaty referenced in the Reuters article linked at the end of the example reproduced above has nothing to do with restricting the sale or ownership of guns within the United States. The aim of a potential U.N. arms treaty is to combat the illicit international trade of small arms by “tightening regulation of, and setting international standards for, the import, export and transfer of conventional weapons” in order to “close gaps in existing regional and national arms export control systems that allow weapons to pass onto the illicit market.” Even if such a treaty came to pass, U.S. rights and laws regarding the sale and ownership of small arms would still apply within the United States.”
Well, laying aside some skepticism about “aims” of the UN, such a treaty would indeed not abrogate domestic gun ownership rights and as further explained at the site. Keep an eye out for specific laws to look at here, don’t be distracted by “lore” items running around.

Please take the time to review the following websites because they reveal that George Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) and groups that promote a variety of leftwing causes are strong advocates of gun control and fund the Arms Control Association (ACA), which outlines the UN Process on Small Arms, along with the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) that is a global movement against gun violence, which has lobbied the United Nations to pass a measure outlawing private gun ownership and effectively overturning the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment:

Additionally, the following article and/or blog post reveals that George Soros is actively working with members of this administration, to include Eric Holder, to revamp our Constitution by creating a “progressive” consensus as to what the U.S. Constitution should provide for by the year 2020:

George Soros assault on U.S. Constitution: ‘White House officials involved in rewriting nation’s founding document’!-Posted on WND.com-By Aaron Klein-On March 27, 2011: